Dark Redemption
by Darth Gorgutz
Summary: My first work is a Star Wars/Warhammer crossover starring Darth Revan as she tries to become a space marine. The tale starts with the battle of the Star forge, following a bit alternate storyline between KOTOR Dark and Light side endings. Halted for now.
1. Chapter 1

Dark Redemption

Prolouge

The Ebon Hawk shook as a lucky laser blast was deflected by its shields, causing Darth Revan to curse loudly as she fought to regain her balance. She picked up her midnight black, hooded cloak and picked up both of her lightsabers, attaching them to her belt next to a chain of thermal detonators. Despite being the rightful Dark Lord of the Sith, she was just twenty four years old, her body atlethic but slender due to the long years of lightsaber practice and combat that honed her skills and condition to perfection.

The power of the Darkside left its mark upon her, but due to her mastery of the Force it wasn't as ghoulish as it was to most of the Sith masters, only turning her skin to a light shade of gray instead of the rotting collection of scars most other Lords had. She was almost completely dressed in a custom suit of red and black armor made of cortosis and mandalorian iron and equipped with the state of the art sensors, shielding and life support. The only piece missing was the T-visored helmet she held in her left hand, her face utterly cruel and exquisitively beautiful at the same time, framed by straight shoulder-lenght hair that was mostly black save for a few dark red stripes that were in stark contrast with the black background. However the most noticable features of Revan were her eyes, the irises glowing blood red with power and promising painful death to all who stood in her path.

Darth Revan inspected her helmet before equipping it, noticing a few scars in the lightsaber-proof armor that would be repaired as soon as she killed Malak and took control again over the Sith forces. She walked into the cockpit as the pilot, a decorated war veteran named Carth Onasi tried to dodge the barrage of flak fire aimed at them. Revan smiled inside her helmet, aware that her plan worked perfectly. The fools on Dantooine tought that they could erase her mind, and for a while she was content to play her part and pretend that they had succeded, even enduring the the painfully boring and pointless lectures by Bastila, who was propably the most arrogant Jedi who ever lived, blissfully unaware that Revan had forgot more about the Dark and Light than she would ever know. She wasn't surprised when Malak turned her to the Darkside, but she had to keep her role of the good redeemed jedi on the Rakata Temple, aware that alerting the Jedi to her true nature would be a fatal mistake now. They would learn soon enough, at least if the Star forge survived the Republic attack.

„Carth, take us into that hangar bay over there" she pointed at one of the unused landing bays ahead. „Brace yourself, this will be rough!" Carth announced as he suddenly changed course towards the hangar, surprising the droid gunners and threwing off their aim.

Revan ran into the cargo bay of the Hawk, checking a hidden cargo container and removing the gun she recovered from a secret room in the Sith Academy of Korriban. The pistol was one of the few family heirlooms she possessed after the ship her family travelled in crash landed on a remote planet in the outer rim. The other ones were ancient books and trinkets she managed to save from her way out the burning wreck. She was the sole survivor of the accident, only alive thanks to her latent powers. The gun was a pistol featuring devotional texts, lightning bolts and skulls inlaid in gold, a sidearm that her father used to carry, its design bulky and massive. A Bolt pistol, she reminded herself as she stoved the 20 round ammo clips to her armor, remembering all she read about the weapon. Bolters were half mass drivers, half rocket launchers that possessed immense destructive power at the cost of a fierce recoil and limited ammunition, and they were only wielded by the most privilaged mortal followers of the Imperium, the unforgiving and warmongering empire her father served. This pistol belonged to his father because he was from a noble family of Holy Terra, the homeworld of the human race.

As a Dark Lord of the Sith Revan should have been above such supertition, but she found herself whispering a prayer she read in one the books to the machine spirit that was said to inhabit imperial machinery. Finishing the incantation, she holstered the gun. Bolter shells were super sonic and armor piercing, and she could not help herself imagining what effect they were going to have on Malak's pitiful lackeys. She quicly packed several poisoned knives and a small hideout blaster into hidden compartments on the armor of her legs as well as few antidode and healing syringes. When she was done she headed for the main chamber of the Ebon Hawk.  
The ship landed on the docking pad a moment after she arrived .

„ I am going after Malak alone!" she ordered as soon as she entered the room. „What about Bastila? We have to save her!" asked Carth, standing at the corridor leading to the cockpit. „ I will send her back here if I can save her. Malak is mine, and mine alone, so listen up and I'll tell you your tasks!" , the voice of Revan brooked no argument, and everybody stared at her silently. „ Carth, keep the Hawk ready to leave as soon as I tell you. Mission, you should man the turret, while Zalbaar will protect the entrance. T3, your task will be to monitor the ship and keep the systems at maximum performance." Revan turned to Jolee and Juhani „ You two should secure the area around the Hawk, while Canderous and HK-47 will cover you.". The metallic voice of HK replied „ Unhappy statement: As you wish master, but please consider how much I would like to splatter the organs of your treacherous apprentice on the floor! Your humble droid begs you Master…." Revan interrupted him with sudden certainity „ Don't worry HK, we will meet again no matter what happens and how long it takes, I can feel it. Now do as I ordered you!" The assassin droid fell silent and checked his repeating blasters, taking confort at the prospect of killing meatbags even without the presence of his master. Carth cited the old Jedi saying „May the Force be with you, Revan!" , „I'm counting on you, so do not die so close to victory!" she replied, and walked out of the Ebon Hawk to see a group of Jedi fighting the Sith enforcers of Malak.

Revan watched her companions joining the fray, than she opened a blast door and started running into the depths of the Star forge.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter one: The Star forge_

Revan drew her lightsabers and ignited them. Both were hand-crafted by herself, using the most powerful focusing crystals she could find, and the best technology she could aquire with a small fortune. She watched as the two bright red beams of plasma illuminated the corridor around her. Revan called on the terrible power of the Dark side, boosting her speed and strenght as well as forming a protective shield of invisible energy around her. The corridor suddenly ended in a T shaped junction. From her experiences aboard the huge station she knew that both led to the same end, and after a split second of hesitation she took the corridor to her right. Without even braking her stride she used her powers of Telekintesis and Shatterpoint to rip the blast door that blocked her way into small metal fragments, revealing a large hall with a narrow metal bridge that was surrounded by a hundred meters deep pit. She sensed a ripple of danger in the Force before the door at the opposite side of the room opened and battledroids leapt into the room , balancing themselves on their only leg and aiming their blaster-armed arms at her. Revan easily sent their blaster bolts back at them using the Soresu form, which was created to counter an overwhelming number of blaster attacks. She watched as the blaster bolts slammed into the deflector sheilds of the droids and pointed the tip of her right handed saber at the droids, unleashing a wave of telekinetic energy that tossed the luckless droids into the abyss.  
Revan immersed herself in the heat of her anger, drawing more power from the emotion and using it to boost her speed. She could not afford to waste time on droids when she could feel the shields of the Star forge already straining under the turbolaser fire from the united Republic fleet. When she reached another junction she heard the crackle of lightsaber duels and saw three jedi knights being cut down by Sith. Encouraged by their vicory, one of the Sith called out to her „More victims to kill, what a pleasure…" . Darth Revan seethed with black rage at the tought of such a pitiful creature calling _her_ „victim" , and she unleashed a blast of lightning, making sure the idiot suffered a painful death before she turned the other two into ashes with a Force Storm. She swiftly ran to the corridor that lead to the elevator, only to find it blocked by two Dark Jedi. Revan switched to Makashi form, beheading one opponent, and deflecting a blow from the second with ease. Before the remaining Dark Jedi could strike again, she tore his blade from his hand with her left saber and impaled the fool on her right one, burning a blackened hole trough his torso.

The elevator took her to the observation level and she started running towards down the corridor, entering into a series of rooms similar to the first one with the ramp and the chasm surrounding it. A few droids and Dark Jedi tried to stop her, just to die a quick death on her lightsabers. She reached a huge hall with an observation window and suddenly encountered a torrent of blaster fire from turrets and troopers. Revan dodged most of the bolts and deflected those which she couldn't avoid, ripping a number of turrets apart with a Force Wave that blocked her way into the control room. Even a Sith as skilled as her could not avoid being hit, and she was glad of her foresight in using heavy armor instead of the light robes that most of Jedi or Sith prefered. The controls of the turrets were easy enough to shut down, but it took fifteen seconds to get them fire on the Sith troopers. Revan stepped into another terminal, which controlled a small fabricator unit next to her. She quickly ordered it to replicate her old robes, and a complete plan of the Star forge, both arcane and scientific for she was now certain that the Republic would _win_… at least for now. Revan put on her robe , concealing the armor, and híd the small datachip of the plans in her belt. She ran towards the elevator, jumping over the corpses of troopers who were slaughtered by the turrets, quickly activating the elevator and holstering her felt saber before drawing her bolt pistol.  
Before the doors of the elevator even finished opening Revan aimed her pistol at the Dark Jedi next to her on the corridor and fired. She watched in fascination as her foe's chest exploded before he could even move. Revan quickly shot two more Dark Jedi and a couple of stunned troopers, the thunder-like sound of the bolter echoed in the enclosed space and its heavy recoil made her call on the Force to steady her aim. After she had witnessed the deadliness of the boltgun, Revan holstered her remaining lightsaber and reloaded the pistol. She entered a narrow corridor, shooting any trooper or Dark Jedi she saw before they had the chance to react. When she reached the door leading to the Command Center she switched to her ligthsabers again, certain that she would meet Bastila in a few seconds.  
As soon as she opened the heavy blast door protecting the command post, she caught sight of Bastila sitting before a huge holographic display. Darth Malak's new apprentice stood up and slowly turned to face her, igniting a double bladed lightsaber. „Revan, I knew you would come for me. You are a _fool_ if you try to fight me for I the Dark side is strongest on the Star forge, your glorified light will avail you nothing." Revan silently activated her sabers before she replied „I see you are just as dense as Malak! Can't you realise I _can not be stopped_?". Revan quickly charged her, faking cuts and landing heavy blows on Bastila's lightsaber to drain her energy reserves. However as soon as Bastila began to tire, a bolt of lightning leapt from the holographic image of the Star forge, rejuvenating her. Bastila aimed a quick flurry of strikes at Revan which she had a hard time parrying. _I have no time left to waste _she tought , suddenly gripping Bastila in the invisible hand of the Force, which made her yell in surpsrise. „Light side, Dark side, it does not matter as long it helps me to achieve my goals. Bastila you can either die now or listen to me. The Star forge is _already_ lost, can't you feel the hull melting under the turbolaser strikes of the Republic? I will spare you, just like I saved your life a dozen times in the last month. If you have a little left of your sanity you'll not stop until you're aboard the Ebon Hawk." Revan could see Bastila realising her mistakes. „I'm so sorry Revan, but Malak made…" before she could finish, Revan already started walking towards the doors that lead to Darth Malak himself. „Bastila just run and tell Carth to take off as soon as you arrive, this station will not last long! Don't even try to argue , I already have an escape plan,_ now go_!" The former Sentinel at least managed to start running towards the hangars before Revan reached the heavy blast doors leading to her former apparentice.

Beyond the door was a large chamber and at the other end Malak waited for her, with two Jedi Knights held as hostages. As Revan approached him Malak turned from her, and sent his lightsaber flying straight trough the neck of one captive while he killed the other with a blast of Force Lightning. Revan could feel the mocking arrogance of her former apparentice, almost as if he were smiling….which was hard to do without a lower jaw. „ I tire of this game, Revan. You have been a thorn in my side from the moment I seized the mantle of the Dark Lord from your feeble grasp! You made a mistake coming here, Revan. The Star Forge fuels my command of the Dark side, you are no match for me here. And this time you _will not escape_!" Malak's voice was a deep mechanical sound and Revan guessed that it had served him well in intimidating weak minded underlings. She did not even bother to reply except by hurling a bolt of lightning that Malak deflected „ Now let the Star forge itself destroy you!" he announced before sealing door as six spider-like battle droids were created by the rakatan station in an instant. Revan reinforced the Force shield around her body and used her telekintetic powers to unclip and throw the thermal detonators she kept on her belt, and fed more power to her shields as the fusion bombs exploded, melting the droids and huge chunks of the Star forge's walls into slag. The doors opened, as Malak no doubt realized that he had to deal with Revan himself. _At least we can stop wasting time_ she tought.

Darth Malak stood at the opposing end of the viewing platform, his back turned to her as she walked to him. „Well done, Revan. I was certain that the defenses of the Star Forge would kill you, but I see that you are your old self once again. You are stronger than I tought, even stronger than you were before I betrayed you." Revan drew her lightsabers „My _hatred_ has no bounds, traitor!" Malak chuckled, „You are eager for blood, Revan… so am I! Who wins here will _rule_ the Galaxy!" he told her, and ignited his lightsaber. Revan was always the stronger in the Dark side, but Malak had sheer strenght and the power of the Star forge to call upon.  
She changed her style to Ataru while Malak fought in Makashi form, which was adept at countering any spells she trew at him. He suddenly charged her, sweeping his blade in a magnificent arc that she had to block with both of her blades. Malak gave her no time to recover, unleashing a flurry of swift cuts and thrusts aimed at her heart which took all her skill to parry. Revan somersaulted back to put some space between herself and Malak, hurling an immense bolt of Force Lighting at him. Malak tried to parry the bolts, but there were simply too many. He fell backwards a few meters, smoking from the shock of electricity. „ You continue to amaze me, Revan. If only you had been the one to uncover the true power of the Star forge you might have become _invicible_. But you were blind to the truth, all you saw was an enormous factory! The Star forge is almost a living creature, feeding on the dark side and capable of empowering me with the _dark taint_! You see the Jedi around you? They were taken from Dantooine when I destroyed the academy there, their only purpose now to bolster my power!" Malak pointed his arm at one of the captives and a bright beam of orange energy lept from the Jedi to his fingers, shrouding him in the power of the Dark side.

„You can not defeat me, not on the Star forge where I can draw upon the power of all these Jedi!" he gloated as he grabbed Revan's throat in an invisible fist, trying to choke her to death. Revan used her own command of the Force to brake the spell, but her powers were almost exhausted and she knew that Malak was right. She Force leapt at him, threwing all caution to the wind as she attacked him with the fury of a Sith Marauder. Still Malak forsaw and blocked all of her attacks despite using only one lightsaber against two. No matter how hard she tried to kill him, Revan only succeded in tiring herself. Malak sensed her weakness, and sent an invisible wall of Force energy at her, knocking Revan off her feet and sending her flying only to land eleven meters away, slamming into the metal floor of the room. „I tought you were a threat to my rule, but now I see that I had overestimated your strenght. Time to die, _Revan_!"  
Revan felt nothing but pain as she landed clumsily on the floor. She was bleeding from various cuts and she was completely tired, despite the stimulants and healing agents her armour pumped into her bloodstream. Both of her lightsabers were knocked out of her hands, and she was out of grenades. As she tried to rise she felt something hard beneath her hand, and she realised that she must had fallen on her pistol. _Hatred is the only thing worth fighting for_, she remembered from one of the ancient imperial books, picking up her pistol with renewed fury. The metallic sound of Malak's laughter echoed in the chamber as he saw what Revan was trying to do. He sweeped his lightsaber in a defensive pattern to deflect any blaster bolts , apparently unaware of the differences between a blaster and a bolter. Revan aimed and fired, the fearsome recoil kicking the gun from her hands. Malak tried to raise a Force Barrier as soon as he realised that his former master was using a primitive slugthrower, but it took the bolter shell only a nano second to cross the few meters separating the two Sith. He looked down to his chest , staring at the head-sized hole that exploded from his body. „Impossible…." he tried to whisper as blood flowed freely from his chest and mouth, and he fell heavily on the floor, already dead before he hit it.

Revan recovered her pistol aand stood up after holstering it. She looked around and summoned her lightsabers back to herself, and after a second she also took Malak's one as a trophy. She ran out of the viewing platform as fast as she could, resolved that she would not die there, not after defeating Malak against all odds. Her anger was almost spent and she tried to draw power from hope, but in the end she had to bend the Light to her aid with the sheer strenght of her willpower. She reached the secret hangar, muttering prayers that she had almost forgotten after her decades of services as a Jedi, trying to rekindle her rage with the hard words of the Litanies of Hate. _Hatred is the Emperor's greatest gift to Humanity_ she recited, focusing her mind on every alien, Jedi and Sith that ever caused her suffering , which at least hardened her mind against the terrible pain of her injured body. Revan finally arrived at the hidden hangar bay and sighed in relief as she saw that the fifty meters long shuttle she had been working on was still untouched.

She made that ship using all her knowledge in the Force and the unlimited resources of the Star forge, and its only purpose was te be able to cross the vast void that separated her from the galaxy of humanity. Aboard it were the few things she could salvage from the transport ship that was thrown into this galaxy by a Warp storm, including many prized books, some of which were actually hand-written and bound in alien skin. There were also a few religious items, such as Aquilas, a little incense and a few bolter shells, of which she commanded the Star forge to copy thousands of rounds and she had stored many of them in secret stashes hidden across the galaxy, alongside with money, armor and lightsabers. The most important equipment however was the ancient vox device, the imperial equivalent of a comlink, that would allow her to hail Imperium ships.  
The shuttle itself featured immense hyperdrive unit, and an oversized special shields system that she designed after studying the remains of the Gellar field that originally was located in the remnants of the kilometer long transport ship crashed on a backwater planet. Revan also studied some of the religious codexes she possessed, and she had the silver wards described there inlaid in the mandalorian iron hull of the ship, just to be sure about the Warp, of which she read quite terrible things about. As a last precaution she had a ten meters long aquila symbol etched into both sides of the wedge-shaped hull of the ship.

Revan collapsed into the chair in the cockpit and started powering up the systems of the large shuttle, checking for any kind of faliure, knowing that she had no time to repair anything. The Star forge was coming apart and the shields that kept the atmosphere in the hangar failed as Revan steered the shuttle out of it, cursing herself as the heavily armored little ship accelerated slowly and flew away from the Star forge. She watched in silent disappointment as the gigantic space station came apart and fell into the super heated corona of the star it orbited.

Revan reached for the comlink, but suddenly stopped as she sensed the presence of powerful Jedi masters like Kavar, Vrook and Zez-kai Ell alongside Master Vandar somewhere on various Republic ships. She was knew that she could not keep up illusions strong enough to fool so many and powerful Jedi, and that they could not allow her to gather her strenght again, despite Malak's death and the destruction of the Sith fleet. Revan shuddered at the tought of her chances, she was not in the mood to be locked away into a cell or in the condition to fight the Masters.

The now powerless Dark Lord of the Sith checked her navicomputer, and stared toughtfully trough the lens of her helmet at the image of the closest galaxy, which quite fortunatly matched all major aspects of the dusty navigation maps she had scavenged from the Imperium transport. She ordered the computer to lock on the position of the area she tought to be the heart of imperial space, and set the time of jump to ten minutes. She opened a direct comlink channel to the Ebon Hawk „It's me, Revan. Malak is dead, but there are still foes that must be defeated, enemies who I must face alone….", she paused for a second, searching for a lie that would cover her escape, „ The true Sith still threaten the peace of the galaxy and they need to dealth with!". It was true in a wierd sense, as herself was the only remaining Sith Lord she knew, and Revan felt that she would not come back to this galaxy for a long time. She took a deep breath „ Carth and Bastila, I know your feelings, but trust me one last time, you need each other and _not_ me. You will make the Republic proud, I am sure of that." she waited to catch her breath „Canderous, fight secure in the knowledge that the Mando'ade will wage war as long as the Galaxy stands, no matter how the Republics of the Jedi and the Empires of Sith rise and fall. All of you will be remembered as heroes of the Republic, even after its fall." With that last remark she cut the channel, fearing that most likely she would never see her loyal comrades again. Revan rechecked all systems of the ship, than walked into the large room at the end of the corridor. It held a stasis chamber constructed after the plans she learned from the Holocron of the Dark Lord Dreypa, with its own backup hypermatter reactor that powered the statis fields that should keep her alive until the ship arrived at its destiantion. With a final, silent prayer Darth Revan activated the stasis chamber and lost conciousness as time froze.


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter two: Divine Vengeance_

The Virtus Gamma system was a hidden secret known to only a select few outside the Adeptus Mechanicus. The orbital shipyards around the forge world Gamma Secundus had just finished the construction of a most secret project. Ten years ago the Astartes chapter of the Blood Ravens discovered a number of STCs blueprints, the most important of was a radically new design of warship, and force commander Indrick Boreale sent the plans to the Mechanicus as soon as he had the chance. The tech priests honoured their ancient pacts with the chapter, and the first two of these new warships were about to be given to the marines.

Gabriel Angelos, the venerable commander of the Third company stood on the bridge of the Litany of Fury, one of the battle barges of his chapter. Only the whiteness of his short hair and his collection of scars showed his true age, for marines could live for millenia until they fell in battle. Ordinary by Astartes standards, he was taller than three meters, encased in a dark red master crafted power armour of unusually modest design, carrying the ancient daemon hammer God-splitter and a combi plasma bolter. Next to him stood the captain of the Fourth company, Davian Thule, a few centimetres shorter and many centuries younger, his own artificier armour almost completely golden with an inferno pistol holstered and another mighty daemon hammer held easily in one hand. The last member of the group was captain Julianus Terra of the second company, who changed his name to reflect the fact that he was born as a noble on the holy planet of Earth. He carried a large power sword with a storm bolter and his armour was dark red with black trim, decorated with golden scripts of High Gothic prayers.

All three captains watched silently as the new fifty kilometer long ships emerged from the shipyards. They were something between a battleship and a battle barge ,but a few kilometers longer, their wide stern like that of a battle barge and bristling with heavy lance turrets ,bombardment cannons and hangars, while their middle section and prow was like that of a Retribution class battleship, armed with truly massive railguns, plasma cannons and six prow mounted heavy torpedo launchers. One of the three Nova cannons were mounted below the prow and the other two were mounted on the sides of the rear section of the ships. The secondary armaments consisted of thousands of smaller laser turrets, plasma batteries, rail cannons and missile bays of various sizes, some useful against smaller starhips while others for planetary bombardment or flak denfense against bombers and other attack craft. The warp drives were something of a miracle, their Machine Spirit capable of independent warp travel even without a navigator. Such was the secrecy of the project that the Mechanicus used its own cadre of servitor-navigators instead of living ones. The void shields and Gellar fields were similar in strenght to those of the Mechanicus ships, and the hulls were covered in a ceramite/adamantium armour hundreds of meters thick. The ships were relativly slow and had a poor acceleration and were uneasy to turn, a drawback of the extremely heavy armour and armament. The crews were mostly techpriests and servitors alongside a few chapter serfs , but in addition to normal astropaths these ships also carried a few special psy-servitors that were capable of instant communication with their kind, a gift of gratitude from the Fabricator General himself.

Archmagos veneratus Antonius greeted the warriors of the Second company on the Divine Vengeance, while the Fourth was welcomed by another Errant archmagi, Hieronimus aboard the Warbringer. The Mechanicus had insisted that the ships needed skill to maintain beyond even that of the average techmarines, and the Astartes happily accepted since the high ranking tech priests were not only men of great wisdom and knowledge, but most of them were also experts in xenos technosorcery and knew many ways to counter even the most nefarious enemy machines. Their bodies were so heavily augmented that their biological parts were little more than nervous systems. Antonius powered up his voxcasters and greeted the Astartes in the flat, emotionless mechanical voice that was the hallmark of the martian priesthood. „In the name of the Omnissiah I welcome you aboard the Divine Vengeance. I am Archmagos Antonius and I will serve you as an advisor of the Mechanicus." The Astartes captain bowed his head and replied in a deep voice „Archmagos , we are _honoured_ by your presence. I am Captain Terra of the Second company and by the will of the _Emperor_ I stand ready to take command of this ship". The magi streched his mechandendrites „Than let us witness the power of the War-spirit imbued in this vessel of the Machine God. Follow me to the main bridge." Without waiting the tech priest started leading the marines trough a maze of corridors, elevators and antigrav trains that connected the various levels and sectors of the ship.

It took them ten minutes to reach the main bridge, which looked like a huge cathedral, its top levels emerging from the rear of the ship to allow the marines to look out to open space trough a series of reinforced blast windows. Altough the bridge was heavily armored and protected by series of void shields , it was still exposed and the Mechanicum constructed an alternate command center in the depths of the ship, safe from enemy fire. However the cogitators linked to Antonius's brain computed that the chances of battle on the vessel's first warp jump test were astronomical. The marine commander towered over him „Prepare to test the warp drives as soon as everything is prepared, magi.". His deep voice made the tech priest look up as he and his command squad incepted the bridge. Chaplain Girardus was staring at into the void, studying the massive lances arrayed before the bridge. He was wearing the black armour and intimidating Death mask of his calling that covered his scarred face. A veteran of seven hundred years, the Chapter Master himself had tasked him to guilde the young captain , who was just two hundred years old, only in command because of his feats of heroism below the accursed _necron catacombs _of Kronus. Altough the fanatically pious captain had a sharp mind for command and possessed all the speed and strenght of his kind, he still lacked the wisdom of Girardus who had been a decorated war veteran before Julianus was even born. Looking at the third marine Antonius instantly recognised the librarian as one of the more radical Blood Ravens, whose armour displayed the colours of the chapter instead of the light blue set by the _Codex Astartes_. As the marine turned towards him Antonius felt an unusual sense of excitement. This psyker was one of the _extremely rare_ examples of female Astartes, which explained why she was only two and a half meters tall, and noticeably more slender than ordinary marines. Before meeting her the magi tought that female marines were just a rumour created by bored priests or guardsmen with too vivid imaginations, marvelling the skill of the apothecaries that must had worked for centuries to modify the gene seed. Antonius was a tech priest, and he guessed that female marines must be much weaker than males, reasoning that this particular specimen must be a very powerful psyker. Her soft voice made him pause his evaluation „Alpha plus, magi". He was stunned by the fact that she could read his mind so easily, before the enormity of that short sentence registered in his brain. _Alpha plus_ level psykers were extremely powerful, irrecoverably driven mad by the warp in most cases and usually killed before their powers could fully develop. The small stature of this librarian would mean nothing in battle if even half of the stories about such terrible psykers were true. The marine slightly bowed her head and itroduced herself „I'm Gabriella Angelos, Epistolary of the Second company." Antonius muttered a few greetings , his half-mechanical mind already racing with the possible theoretical ways of gene seed alternation.

Gabriella extended her warp sight towards the Litany of Fury and the Warbringer, making sure that everything was in order with her uncle and Captain Thule. She brushed a lock of her golden-orange hair from her vivid green eyes, scanning the stars with the superior sight of a space marine for any flicker of movement. Altough she knew the power of her immaterial senses, some foes like tau and necrons were extremely hard to _trace_ in the Warp. She knew that the ship was about to enter the warp space before the huge armour plates slid before the observation windows and the chief navigation servitor announced the immiment transition to the Warp in a dead, monotone voice. She made sure that her mental defenses were intact before the Divine Vengeance fell into the nightmare of the Warp for the first time, smashing aside daemons and other abominations with its glowing Gellar fields. After a few seconds, she felt the shock of warp transition again as the ship reverted back to an empty area of interstellar real space, a few dozen light years away from the Virtus Gamma system. The archmagos connected one of his mechandendrites to a cogitator console, and reported total succes after a few seconds of silence. The psy-servitors received reports that the Litany and Warbringer were also succesful in their jumps. The Mechanicus wanted to compare the new warp drives to that of the original battle barges.

A tech priest with bionic eyes and hands suddenly turned to the captain „Lord, the Augur spirits of our auspexes have detected a ship dropping out of the warp. It is just six thousand kilometres away from us, and yet when I scanned the area the only vessel I found was impossibly small. Smaller than _one hundred_ meters, if my calculations are correct." Antonius instantly felt ashamed , for it was a bad omen to have sensor malfunctions on their very first flight. No ship smaller than a kilometer could have warp drives installed, they were simply too large. Gabriella spoke first „Your sensors work well, acolyte of the Machine God. The ship I sense is roughly fifty meters long." The technomagi's shame suddenly turned to curiosity „It _must_ be archaotech! Captain, we should capture it as soon as we can!". Julianus noded slowly „We should approach carefully, it could be a bait for a trap, or a bomb. You can never be sure until a captured vessel is _purified_ in the God Emperor's name. If we detect no enemy movement and explosives aboard it, I will personally escort you as soon as we can take a look at it." Antonius hesistated, thinking about a suitable reply as the enginseer monitoring one of the Auspex cogitators spoke again „We already scan the ship and I can safely state with a ninety seven percent of certainity that the ship contains a minimal amout of explosives, nothing more than a few grenades or bolter shells. It also has suprisingly strong shielding and a few light plasma turrets of unknown origin. There may be a few living humans aboard, but the adamantium hulls make that difficult to detect." The marine captain smiled coldly before addressing the Mechanicus personel in charge of the plasma drives, for a few humans would have no chance against an entire company of the Emperor's Finest „All right, begin approaching the unknown vessel and prepare the Arvus Lighters to tug it into Hangar Delta-two."

Darth Revan awoke with a headache worse than any hangover she ever had, feeling a bit sick and unsteady. As soon as she recovered her composure she felt that something was extremely wrong. The Dark side was simply nowhere, as if it never had existed at all. Revan tried to draw power to herself, but shut her powers down in terror as she felt something horrible and malevolent probing her mind, realising that the warp daemons she read about were all too real. She searched her oldest memories that suggested that the Force was not with her before she was taken by the Jedi to Dantooine. The masters were perplexed when they found out that the number of the midi chlorians in her blood began to increase _exponentially_ as she learned about the mysteries of the Force. Revan came to the only logical conclusion, that the midi chlorians were even more deeply connected to the Force than the ancient Jedi and Sith holocrons suggested. Maybe the midi chlorians and the Force were inseparable from each other, or she was just too _far_ from the Galaxy and the Force that surrounded it. She knew all too well that the bond between two jedi grew stronger the closer they were to each other, and it was possible that the Force might work the same way.

Revan had not felt so helpless for decades, swearing obscenities at her bad luck as she walked out of the main stasis chamber into the smaller one containing her most valuable items. She quickly disengaged the stasis field and searched the various imperial codexes and prayer books, finding proof of imperial psykers capable of wielding their powers, but not a clue except a few short prayers about how they managed to use their abilites without _being possessed_ by daemons. Revan uttered another vile curse in mandalorian, looking for the only book she never managed to open. She quickly found the magnificent tome. It was an extremely large book, almost too heavy for her to lift, bound in ceramic plates and locked by a genetic key, its cover featured a black raven siluette with a ruby tear of blood in its center. The words _Apocrypha of the Unfounding_ were displayed as a golden plating below the raven symbol in the sweeping letters of the Imperium, so unlike the blocky and angular Aurebesh mostly used in the Republic, altough the words were of the same language, which her parents called „_Low Gothic_" and the Jedi masters simply named as „_Basic_". Revan knew that the book was sealed because it contained important knowledge, but before she could try anything the proximity alarms started whining.

Revan ran to the cockpit as fast as she could manage, checking the sensor readouts and almost blacking out as she saw the chronometer. Its readout suggested that the journey took more than four _thousand_ years. She read that time sometimes flowed differently in the Warp than in real space, but even the worst cases were about one or two centuries. _It might be just a computer error _she tried to comfort herself, but failed miserably. The hypermatter reactors, sheilding, hyperdrive, weapons and life support systems were all on-line. The proximity sensor showed something truly huge nearby, _a small moon judging by the readouts_ she mused, before she looked up at the veiwscreen to see the biggest ship she ever saw or read about. She magnified the image, suddenly looking at a flying fortress almost completely covered in weapon ports. The angular and blocky forms of the turrets and bulkheads were familiar, and she sighed as she saw the collection of aquilas and half-mechanical skull symbols of the machine priests displayed on almost any surface larger than a hundred meters. _At least it is imperial , now lets see if the vox still works. _With that tought Revan activated the salvaged vox unit, trying to tune its frenquencies to the comm transmitters on her ship. She looked back at the brutal form of the battleship, momentarily perturbed by the raven symbol before remembering the similar one on the cover of the _Apocrypha _. _Maybe the book belonged to the owners of this ship_ she reasoned, not having any idea about who the raven represented. The vox unit beside her suddenly started beeping and whirring. As Revan turned towards the brass device an ultra deep mechanical voice boomed from the speakers „Unidentified ship, this is Captain Terra of the Divine Vengeance. We detected an energy surge from your vessel. Power down your weapons and drop your shield systems. Thunderhawks will be sent to escort you into our hangar. Obey or face the wrath of the _Adeptus Astartes_!". Her reply was barely above a whisper „As you wish, sir". The last two words of the captain sent a chill down on Revan's spine. Astartes were the official name of the space marines, the Emperor's own unstoppable Angels of Death, of whom she heard and read many tales that sounded impossible. Even if only a fraction of the fairy tales were true, she was at the mercy of warriors who could not even _understand_ its meaning.


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter three: Angels_

Captain Terra watched as the wedge shaped shuttle landed gracefully on the second docking bay in the vacuum of hangar Delta. Its hull was pitted by hundreds of tiny craters caused by micro meteorite impacts, but the large golden aquila etched into it was still clearly visible. The auto senses of his helmet scanned the hull, detecting a slightly unfamiliar alloy of adamantium. The two Thunderhawk escorts landed seconds later and the heavy blast bulkheads sealed the hangar from space. Julianus's brain started receiving data from the chemical sensors of his helmet as the hangar filled with air. At least one human female was aboard the shuttle, and he voxed the warriors of his honour guard to stand ready. The marines encircled the vehicle, training their guns on the smooth hull. Gabriella's voice echoed in his mind: _We are not in danger,_ unnerving him despite the fact that he trusted the psyker with his life. He drew his storm bolter and stepped forward as the airlock on the shuttle began depressurising.

After landing the ship in the enormous hangar, Darth Revan unclipped her lightsabers and placed them beside the bolt pistol on her bed. She saw at least ten huge armoured forms from the cockpit, and knew that bringing a weapon would not improve the chances of her survival. She smoothed her black robe put on a golden aquila amulet, hoping to make a good impression if that was possible. She swiftly walked to the airlock, and waited as the hangar was filled with air. The sensors outside judged the air breathable, opening the outer doors of the airlock. Revan walked out into the hangar, but stopped as soon as she saw the gigantic figure who stood motionless before her. He was taller than three meters and wider than one, dwarfing her with his mere presence. As she watched the marine she became aware of the glowing pairs of green and red eyes staring at her, realising that they belonged to marines who were training their bolters on _her_. Revan looked up into the grim visor of the Astartes, feeling as if its green eyes could see trough her clothes and skin right into her body. It took all her willpower to stop staring as she bowed her head deeply to the marine towering over her. „My name is Revan, and I am… my family was imperial and we were lost in the… Immaterium. Only I survived, and I was trying to come back home..." she was trying to speak coherently „ I mean to come back to serve the Emperor" she finished. The marine studied her silently for a moment, than answered her in a familiar voice „I am Captain Julianus Terra of the Blood Ravens. You speak the truth… Revan, but I know you are _hiding_ something from me. How could you claim a ship like that and how did you find us?" Revan considered her options, aware that her Sith past and psyker powers would not please the marine, but than she saw as the hand of the captain drifted to the hilt of his sword, a blade as large as herself, and it was the only hint she needed. „I am a… psyker, lord, that is how I survived when everybody else died as our philgrim ship crash landed an an abandoned world, after a warp storm threw it away from its course to Gathalamor" she paused to calm herself „ I was rescued by strangers to find out that I was… stranded in _another_ galaxy. I became a… local warlord and I used my minions to make this shuttle. My second in command betrayed me and I used his enemies to… accomplish my revenge, but all I managed to save of my army was this ship and it was my best option to come here."

Julianus turned to Gabriella , who voxed him „She speaks the truth. This Revan is as faithful as she can be given her specific… _circumstances_. Captain, she is at least as powerful as I am." The last sentenced surprised the captain. Few alpha plus psykers were ever born, and fever survived to be useful. He understood the meaning of the librarian, and measured the girl standing in from of him. Her skin was an unusual shade of grey, and her bright red eyes showed intelligence and cunning. Despite her exotic complexion she was truly beautiful, and her body was slender and strong, her constition sound. The leader of the Second company released the hilt of his sword and motioned Revan to follow him. „ You faced me bravely, young Revan. Few _mortals_ held their composure like you when they first encountered my kind. Come, walk by my side. We have much to discuss."

Revan sat in a small, spartan room that was assigned to her and meditated upon what happened to her in just a few days. She could barely believe what was happening to her. She talked for hours with the Astartes captain following their first encounter. It was almost like an interrogation, the marine wanted to hear about her every act, and the reasons why she commited her actions. She was so tired that she fell asleep instantly. She was woken by a Chaplain who wore a nightmarish mask of a snarling skull on his helmet. The marine priest questioned her for hours, asking difficult and comlex quiestions about the Emperor, humanity and honour. As soon as her interrogator left the room , the cyborg priests of the _Adeptus Mechanicus _came in and started measuring her with all kinds of arcane instruments. She could guess from the form of some machines that they were medical sensors, but most were unfamiliar. For long hours she had listened to the cryptic chittered of the priests, understanding nothing of Binary. When they were finally finished, one of the cyborg automatons called _servitors _brought her a glass and some disgusting, tasteless sludge it actually called _food_. After a few hours of waiting a hooded figure entered her room and introduced herself as Librarian Gabriella. She sat down next to Revan, who saw that the young woman was roughly her age and nearly seventy centimeters taller than her. Gabriella had an angelic face, compassionate green eyes and long, golden-orange hair that gave her an aura of severe and benevolent beauty, but Revan sensed that the librarian was as merciless and deadly as the dour and menancing Chaplain once the shooting started. The Astartes informed Revan that her powers presented her a unique opportunity to join the ranks of the space marines. Gabriella told her that she was free of Chaos taint and mutation, and she was destined to become a librarian herself, who served as the battle mages, seers and lorekeepers of the marines. The _only_ thing that stood between her and becoming one of the Emperor's own immortal champions were a series of trials that usually only _less_ than five percent of the aspirants survived. Luckily she was not required to take the first test, the Blood Trials that were massive gladiator fights designed to weed out the weaklings and leave only the strongest alive.However she still had to survive the implantation process, which she could fail at a thousand points, of course. Revan put her doubts aside, for she had _survived_ against impossible odds before, like on Taris, the Star forge and her long, cold journey. She would win this time again.

Chaplain Girardus watched as the aspirants fought in mock skirmishes with blunt swords and clubs. The training sessions were non-lethal… at least for now. As he checked the various fights Girardus found himself smiling despite himself as he watched Revan's duel with Lexius, one of the biggest aspirants of this group. The young warrior was a Cadian, raised to fight from early childhood in the deadliest fortress planet that ever existed. He used his brute strenght and endurance to overpower most of his opponents, but he was not slow and clumsy despite his bulk. Revan on the other hand was slender and possessed an agility that was almost inhuman. If she made it to become a true marine, she would be even faster than any eldar. Lexius couldn't manage to land a blow on her while the much lighter woman always managed to cut him. After a few seconds one of the servo skulls orbiting the training chamber announced that Revan won… again. Girardus was impressed when she turned out to be the only aspirant who had not been beaten today. He raised his voice so everybody could hear him clearly in the chamber „The training is over for today. Clean up yourself Revan, and meet Librarian Angelos in _ten minutes_ in at the entrance of the Librarium."

The Librarium was one of the more heavily guarded areas of the ship, and it served many different purposes. It was a library containing millions of books, which were meticiously cleaned by a host of servitors regulary. There were secret chambers already filled with forbidden texts that could only be opened by the battle brothers of the chapter. An entire level of it was covered in an extra layer of psychic wards and served as a training area for psykers. Psychic training consisted of meditation, reading and the actual spellcasting. Revan was only just trying to learn how to protect her mind from the _ever present_ threat of Chaos daemons, which required faith, discipline and willpower above everything else. However on the last occasion Gabriella was carrying a huge book, marked with the badge of the Blood Ravens. She put the book in its place on a shelf, but she suddenly stopped moving as Revan stared at her, radiating a mixed wave of shame, curiosity and confusion. „Is there a problem, aspirant?" she asked hesitantly. Revan stared at the floor, her emotions suddenly chaning to guilt „I am terribly sorry but I had so many things on my mind... I forgot that I have a copy of your book back on my shuttle. I guess it should be returned to the Chapter, I never figured out how to open it anyway." Gabriella was less upset than she imagined „All right, lets take a look at your shuttle." After a few minutes they reached the Mechanicum research chamber where her síp was taken to. The tech priests were scanning it with great care, as if they were afraid of braking it. Revan followed the librarian into the shuttle and showed her collection of books and weapons to Gabriella. „Did you know how hard is it to find some of these books today? I had no idea that you…" she stopped speaking and stared silently at the large, keramit-plated book secured in one corner of the room. „By the Throne, Revan! That is not the Codex Astartes but a genuine copy of the _Apocrypha of the Unfounding_. We had been searching for that book for _thousands_ of years…" her voice trailed off as she reverently picked up the sacred tome and started walking back to the Librarium, pausing to say something into a voxcaster in the wall. Revan quickly picked up her bolt pistol and lightsabers, than hurried after the marine. She was shocked to see that almost the entire company was already in the Librarium when she and her mentor arrived. A young looking astartes in simple red robes with blue eyes and short brown hair laid a massive hand on her shoulder „You had brought back that was lost to us for five thousand years, Revan. I think you will only understand the true meaning of this book when you will finally joind our ranks." His voice was slightly familiar and Revan realised that she was seeing her captain without his armour for the first time. She quickly bowed her head, feeling somehow unease by how suddenly did she appread to earn the favour of Julianus. She was curious about what secrets could that book hold to have such importance for her superiors, and for the first time she felt hopeful about her chances of success.

Once again Revan lay on the surgicial table in the Apothecarium, a place of with her previous encounter made her familiar with. It was most unlike any other medical facility she ever saw, its entire design more like a torture chamber. The black walls and the all prevading smell of medical incense were bad enough, but now one of the Magos Biologis injected her with some kind of paralyzing agent that prevented her from moving. The marines obviously never heard about painkillers, or considered them irrevelant. Revan actually started to believe that they wanted the implantation process to be as painful as it could be without damaging her. Her chest was already scarred from her first operation, where the Secondary Heart, the Ossomdula and Biscopea were placed in her chest cavity while she was sedated to unconsciousness. Now the Apothecary used a small scalpel to re-open some of the wounds and inserted the _Haemastamen_ directly into her main artery, sealing the wound swiflty before she bled to death. A tech priest handed him the _Larraman's organ_ and a large collection of blood vessels, which took almost five minutes to be precisely placed near her primary heart. To Revan's horror the Apothecary left the wounds open to the air, and the paralized psyker could do nothing but to watch him and the tech priests leaving her alone in a dark chamber. After a minute her fear changed to surprise as she found out that her wounds were healing much faster than before. In ten minutes only a few _faint lines_ of scar tissue remained of the deep wounds as her _Larraman_ cells quickly regenretad the damage done to her body. After another ninety seconds the paralysis started to fade, allowing her to move into a smaller chamber where she could wash the clotted blood from her body and dress up into one of the smaller freshly cleaned robes. The trials she had to face were getting more and more difficult, but in the same time her own body started chaning. She was already taller and stronger than before, and it was _just_ the beginning.


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter four: Ascension_

The large feasting hall of the Divine Vengeance must have been built with space marines in mind, as the tables and chairs were much bigger and heavier than those used by humans. The surviving nine newly promoted _neophytes_ usually dined tougether, consuming huge amounts of meat and various kinds of chemical sludges that were designed to enhance the speed of their growth and ensure the proper development of their rapidly changing bodies. The _acceleration_ of the gene seed was a very risky process, even with the help of the Mechanicus. The _Ossmodula_ and _Biscopea_ were working well, and Revan could feel her bones growing, her skeleton altering, which resulted in a healthy amount of pain troughout the day. She was also becoming more adept at shielding herself from the daemons and drawing power directly from the Warp, but it was still a far cry from her mastery of the Dark side. The tech priests told her that the _Larraman_ cells caused her immune system to _purge the_ _midi chlorians_ from her body, ending her career as a Sith. She still managed to conjure a few bolts of lightning, and she was getting stronger each day. Revan was not only taller than before, but her muscles started to become _denser_ and her metabolism sped up her reflexes to new levels. Chaplain Girardus started teaching them in the ways of Imperial Faith practicesed by the Chapter, and Revan was relieved that the old veteran was _actually_ a good preacher, unlike Bastila who annoyed her deeply with pointless lectures. The basic tenets were simple enough. First: unfailing faith and loyalty to the God Emperor, the Chapter and the rest of the Imperium in that order. Second: ruthlessly hunting down and killing anybody who fell to Chaos, no matter the cost. Third: exterminating aliens and anybody who is not imperial in the most violent ways possible, until they are totally extict and their cities are all ruined. There were a host of minor issues, like the differences between the Emperor and the Machine God , the various branches and sects of the Ministorum and the Primarch cults favoured by most other Chapters. Revan learned these lessons well, because as the former Crusader of the Jedi she knew the power that stood behind the beliefs and convitions of the masses.

Revan entered the Apothecarium already knowing that her next operation will be everything but pleasant. On the previous day Apothecary Septimus eagerly briefed her on the next implant, the _Catalepsean Node_. It had to be directly put into the back of her brain, which meant a drill, something Revan had bad memories about from her last visit to the Astartes healer. She obediently sat into a special chair designed to hold the neophyte during implantations that targeted the head, anticipating the feeling of a syrenge in her arm that never came. The Apothecary secured her head in a metal device instead and simply told her to stay put, starting up his drill. Revan wasn't even remotly happy with this new way of operation, and tried focusing on the function of this implant as the diamantine tip of the drill teared into her skull. The _Node_ was supposed to allow marines to enter a state of semi-sleep where they could switch off some parts of their brains while remaining alert to danger, but the Blood Ravens had a slightly _mutated_ organ which allowed the marines to stay awake indefinitly. It also provided a perfect recall and photographic memory that was very useful, especially for the Librarians who were tasked with keeping the history of the Chapter. The last function was that the organ allowed the marine's brain to be connected to special teaching cogitators, which supplied the neophyte with tremendous amounts of information and memories, while they also subtly altered the mind of the user, correcting any unwanted traits of his or her personality and making them into the most faithful and fearless of all the soldiers of the Imperium. Revan shuddered as Septimus placed the tiny organ into the back of her brain, her blood quickly sealing the wound in her skull. She stood up slowly and went to the teaching machine chamber, as she was releaved from fighting for three days, which should be more than enough time for her skull to repair itself. Revan sat down into yet another uncomfortable chair, and a robed acolyte put a wierd helmet that was made of crystals and copper wires on her head. For a few seconds nothing happened, than the cables connecting her helmet to the nearest cogitator glowed and suddenly a torrent of images, memories, sounds and feelings assaulted her brain. Time seemed to slow as she fought to understand and slow down the terabytes of information that were pumped into her brain, without any succes. After what seemed a few minutes the transmission stopped and Revan sat in her chair, suddenly confused. After a few seconds of rest she gathered her strenght and started walking towards her sleeping cell. As she checked the time she realised that twelve hours had passed since her encounter with the Apothecary, and it seemed less than an hour to her. She suddenly felt very exhausted, collapsing on her bed with her hair still bloody from the operation.

In the following days she usually spent at least four hours a day linked to a cogitator, understading more with each day as her enhanced brain started processing the vast amounts of data it received. She now knew how to use, repair and maintain almost all pieces of space marine equipment from microgrenades to the mighty Thunderhawk Gunships.

Gabriella was pleased with her progress „ You will not only become totally loyal to _Him_ on Earth but will also learn hundreds of prayers, that will each trigger a unique response from your body like dropping your blood pressure , damping pain and activating some of your implanted organs." Revan already knew what she meant by that, aware of each of the nineteen implants and their functions. Gabriella lead her into a special chamber designed to improve her abilites of stopping projectiles with warp shields. The epistolary waited as Revan drew power from the Warp, forming a barrier around her that glowed with a silvery light. When Revan was ready, she activated the gun servitors wired into the walls who fired a barrage of slugs, laser beams and plasma bolts at the shimmering shields of the neophyte, who kept up the barrier by bending even larger amounts of warp energy to her will. Just before she was about to pass out from the strain of keeping the torrent of projectiles at bay, Gabriella disabled the chamber and the servitors stopped firing instantly. Revan slowly let the shield fade away as the warp energy powering it was depleted. „You performed twenty-eight seconds better than you did yesterday. This spell I am training you in is known as the _Word of the Emperor_, designed to protect our brothers from heavy enemy fire, be it mundane or magical. It requires a strong will as well as raw power, but after your training will be compeleted, you'll be able to stop a smaller artillery bombardment." Revan felt exalted by the fact that she was _always_ the best, no matter what her mentors demanded of her.

The neophytes were divided into two squads for their first lethal training exercise. Revan's squad was the smaller, as her psyhic abilites counted for much more than a single warrior. Apart from herself and Lexius their squad included Vigilus, an average looking man known for his deadly accuracy and the technical-minded Mandeus. They were all vested in carapace armour and were given a shield and a shortsword. The goal of the exercise was simple, a large number of captured rebel soldiers were armed with clubs and other melee weapons and released into a special training area that looked liked a small jungle, with an interesting collection of bugs and other vermin. The area was observed by servo skulls, and the squad that killed more of the prisoners would be the winner. Killing was the easy part, the challange was finding the scum before the others did. Revan flashed a predatory smile towards her squadmates, and started running towards the biggest concentration of wretches she could feel. She killed her first victim with a ball of fire, incinerating the sentry into a pile of gently smoking ashes. A score of thirty rebels surged from the jungle, brandishing swords, axes, pikes and clubs as their leader yelled „Die imperial dogs!" Revan showed her disapproval by hurling a bolt of _chain lightning_ that killed all of them except the leader, who she simply crushed to jelly in an invisible fist, like the Force grip she loved so much as a Sith Lord. Cries of pain and screaming indicated that her fellow initiates also found some opponents to _practice on_. Revan choose her targets carefully, not wanting to disturb the others as she ran quickly trough the jungle. She tried to be creative, throwing terminator sized boulders and all manner of painful death on the sorry heretics who came close to her. Revan tried to drew the life energy from her last target like the Sith life drain ability, and a bolt of orange light connected her with the rebel, collapsing the body of her target and invigorating her at the same time. _That was the last one _she felt, and started walking towards the entrance of the training hall.

Septimus waited for her at the other side of the door with a broad grin on his face „Forty two, you almost killed a third of them by yourself. Good work, and I see you are _not even_ tired. Perfect time for the next set of implants! Come, you'll be the first." Revan was not entirely comfortable with the enthusiasm of her torturer, but she had no choice but to follow him. She found out that with her new set of prayers she could turn off her pain receptors, and she watched dispassionatly as the _Multi-lung _and the _Preomnor_, a pre-stomach that would allow her to eat almost anything, was placed in her enlarged chest. The _Multi-lung's _function was to allow the marine to breath in almost any kind of atmosphere that had enough oxygen. The _Omophagea_, a small organ was placed in her spinal cord between the cervical and thoracic verebrae by an extremely thin mechandendrite attached to one of the emotionless Magos Biologis, who injected her a hair-thin line of neural tissue connecting it straight to the preomnor. Now with enough practice, Revan could learn the memories and basic traits of her enemies by simply eating them, something disgusting but very useful. Septimus seemed pleased and began to close her wounds. It seemed to her that without her pain, the Apothecary tought leaving the wounds open would be pointless. One of the tech priests sprayed some healing liquid into her body before Septimus closed the incisions, allowing her own body to compensate for any internal bleeding.

A few days after she received the Phase seven to nine organs, she found Captain Julianus waiting for her before her room. „Would you do me a favour, Miss Revan?" he asked her like a friend, not her commanding officer „Of course, my lord." She replied, unsure of what he would do next. Julianus walked to a small container and pulled out the thawing head of an ork. „Please could you tell me who slew this xeno?" It took a few moments before Revan understood the request. The captain handed her a large spoon and a _Sol _pattern combat knife, the standard sixty centimeters blade all space marines carried. She took the blade and opened the deceased ork's skull with a circular incision at the line of its cranium. She plunged the blade into the incision and pulled the upper part of the alien's skull free. She took a deep breath and exchanged the knife for the spoon, praying to the Emperor for mercy as she started eating the slimy tissue of the ork brain. It was a disgusting and sour, and she almost threw up after _swallowing_ the first mouthful of gray jelly. After fifty long seconds she emptied the skull and sat down on the floor to meditate, trying to be curious about the ork's fate. After a few moments she began to see flashes of its memory. Revan concentrated on the concept of death, and suddenly saw a black armoured Blood Raven standing over her as if she were lying in a jungle clearing. „He was a Chaplain... not Girardus tough, the ornamentation is different." The captain smiled at her proudly „That was Reclusiarch Mikealus you saw. Your meal had been frozen for two years." Revan tried to look like honoured, but she could only think about her unsavoury meal. She watched as the captain disappeared from sight, and started running towards the nearest refresher to _get rid_ of the foul thing in her preomnor_._

„Cool gun!" Revan said before regretting it instantly as Techmarine Terentius glanced at her, radiating a tidal wave of outrage into the Warp at her informal and disrespectful remark about the Plasma Pistol she was practicing with. Most marines seemed to think that she was still speaking without the _dignity_ that was excepted of her as a future Blood Raven. She aimed the plasma pistol at another plastic target five hundred meters away, sublimating it into a cloud of steam and ashes with a shot to the chest. Revan fired again, hitting another of the target dummies in the head. She was aiming at the third one when the targets started moving, threwing off her aim and causing her plasma bolts to superheat the thick adamantium walls of the shooting range. In her frustration she tried to forsee the movement pattern of her targets, but she still missed as many times as she hit something. Revan was still furious at her own clumsiness at the end of the Firing rites, and decided to visit Septimus. She was eager to receive the next collection of implants, but the Apothecary always told her to be more patient. This operation would be a long and painful one, but she was impatient to get over it. Septimus and his Mechanicus colleagues examined her and finally he nodded „Come back in an hour, we need time to prepare." She was surprised, wondering just _how coplicated_ the next phase of her tranformation would be. Upon her return an hour later she was surprised to see Gabriella, who wanted to witness the operation of her apparentice.

Revan was once secured in a special chair which blocked any kind of movent for the third time. Septimus brandished a small power knife, and started to cut a hole into her head. When he was done she felt the _Sus-an membrane _being placed atop of her brain, an implant that enabled marines to suspend their animation. He quickly placed the top of her head back to its place, and a tech priest sprayed a specalized agent on her head to accelerate the regeneration of her keramit bones. She sat motionlessly as her natural ears were replaced with the _Lyman's Ears,_ which would give her a superior healing. That was painful, but Revan's mind was occupied by the machine that stood before her face, reaching for her eyes with its many tiny mechanical servo-arms. She nearly screamed as her eyeballs were temporarily removed and the machine planted the _Occulobe_ behind them, which would in time radically alter her eyes to give her a sight far superior to humans. She tried not to shake as the machine placed her eyes back into their sockets, which were already treated with genetic agents to enhance her night vision. She relaxed as the terrible machine was taken away from her. Septimus opened her mouth and implanted the _Neuroglottis_ and _Betcher's Glands_. The former's function was to improve her sense of smell and taste, while the latter glands synthesised a deadly poisonous acid that the marine could spit at her foes. After the Apothecary checked her skull integrity, she was gently lowered to a bed and he opened her chest cavity again, introducing the _Oolitic Kidney _to her circulatory systems, which would again boost the speed of her metabolism and resistance to poisons. When he was done, Septimus inserted the _Melanochrome_ next to the kidney, a small black orb designed to improve the marine's resistance against radiation. The last special organ to be implanted was the _Mucranoid_, which was placed in her lower intestine and was slightly improved by the Apothecaries of the Blood Ravens and the acolytes of the Mechanicus. Normally it would function only if stimulated by a special dose of chemicals, but now the marines could activate it by their own will, coating their bodies in a layer of oily sweat that would improve their resistence to extreme temperatures and cleanse their bodies of dirt. Septimus made the sign of the aquila and took a tube from a servitor which held two gene seeds that would monitor and control the function of her implants. The smaller one was implanted in her neck, while the larger one was placed near her primary heart. When everything was done, the Apothecary closed her torso and stepped back to admire his work. Revan watched the Julianus and Girardus entered the chamber as servitors clothed her in a fine plastic bodyglove. They were joined by Gabriella and encircled the bed in which she lay. Without warning every pain receptor in her body flared in anguish as the _neuroglove_ was activated.

Captain Terra stood before the limp body of Revan, his storm bolter drawn. He watched as her face twisted in silent agony, the neuroglove _forcefully preventing_ her from losing consciousness. Everybody stood silently for ten minutes, than Julianus spoke to Revan in a flat voice „I can end your pain." This was the final trial of a neophyte. Those who pledged their loyality to the Emperor _lived_ while those who wished the end of pain were _shot_.

Revan knew that she had to hold on just for a few minutes longer. As the captain asked her, she recited one of the key mottoes of the Imperium „_Pain as an illusion of the senses, despair is an illusion of the mind_.". Even as her body was aflame she could sense the relief of every marine in the room. The pain suddenly ceased and she was able to move. Septimus quickly brought her clean clothing and she looked up to see Julianus smile for the first time since they met. „I am _proud_ of you, young Revan. Now you are the member of the Blood Ravens chapter, a place you earned in honest toil of blood and pain." She felt exalted as he led her to the Chapel, realising that she was an Astartes now, in mind and body.


	6. Chapter 6

_Chapter five: Baptism of Blood_

The Chapel of the Divine Vengeance was a cathedral designed to mirror the ancient temples of Terra in its dark, gothic glory. The walls were black marble, adorned with stained glass windows depicting famous imperial victories, the entire Horus Heresy and the history of the Chapter. Golden devotional ornamentation cowered almost everything, mostly in the form of imperialis and aquilas while purity seals were fixed to the walls.  
Almost the whole second company was present, their deep voices amplified by the voxcasters of their helmets. Chaplain Girardus led his brothers in prayer as the scouts knelt before the altar of the Emperor, reciting the sacred litanies and oaths. Revan scented at least a dozen different kinds of incense with every breath she drew, kneeling and swearing her loyalty with awe.  
Captain Julianus stood near the newly ascended scouts, sorrounded by the towering forms of his Terminators. Gabriella stood two meters from him, her helmet held in her left hand and her face held high, proud of her new apparentice.

After the ceremony they attended to a grand feast of celebration, with tables full of all manner of exotic foods, some brought straight from Terra, Catachan and dozens of distant worlds of she knew nothing about.  
When there was nothing left to eat, the captain announced that they were en route to the world of Nova Skarrius, a relativly new mining colony located on the Centaurus arm deep in the Segmentum Ultima. The only important thing about the planet were the large and easily accesable veins of gold that were found there by Techpriests seven hundred years ago.  
Three months ago a small group of fleeing heretics arrived and started a rebellion to get rid of the Imperium authorities and the local nobility, who maintained a much smaller army than they should had, obviously saving money for their own end. The ruling families realised their mistake too late, and now only a handful of them were alive in besieged Arbites fortressess.  
Altough the Mechanicus foothold was too heavily armed to be taken by the rebels, the flow of gold had stopped from the mines, and the nearby forge worlds were already running out of the rare metal mainly used to create precise electric circuitry. Archmagos Antonius spent hours explaining to the captain why should the marines intervene, as Imperial Guardsmen from Armageddon had landed on Slaxium already, and they were slowly but inexorably driving the rebels back. In the end Julianus agreed to lend support to the Guard, as he found no other conflicts of importance in the subsector.

Revan was fifty meters away from the southern walls of the PDF station that the rebels had dug in themselves. Her ultra keen ears picked out the cracks of lasguns and the thunder of artillery as the seventh mechanized company of the 671st Steel Legion assaulted the northern side of the enemy fortification. The primary objective of her squad was to rescue the high ranking imperial officers while the defenders were busy. The second one was to disable the plasma generators powering most of the heavy weapons on the walls.  
She summoned a few currents of warp power to her command, expanding her witch sight to search the surrounding area for any clues about the rebels. While Gabriella was a master of telepathy, Revan's talents were more focused on actual combat. She could only sense the presence of the six enemy troopers in a nearby basement, stragglers too slow to get inside the fortification before the entrances were sealed. Her interest lay not in them, but in the tunnels that ran just under its floor, straight past the walls.

Revan pulled her cameleoline cloak around her body, waiting for a few seconds to make sure that it mimicked her surroundings correctly. She silently sneaked into the building occupied by the rebels, hearing their muffled voices from a reinforced iron door nearby. Her best chance was to storm in and kill them before they could react. She positioned herself next to the door, and pulled the small disc of a frag grenade from her belt.  
The door opened as she unlocked it with a small push of telekinesis. She looked down the stairs and lobbed the grenade, before rolling away as the superheated blast of a melta gun liquefied the door and continued to melt trough the walls opposed to it. As soon as the gunner fired the grenade exploded amongst their ranks and she was satisfied with the horrible screams that followed the sound of explosion.  
Revan leaped down the stairs, bypassing the still glowing remains of the door. Two corpses lay at the bottom of the stairs, one with a melta to her relief. Those fusion weapons were easily capable of incinerating a scout, and she didn't wanted to test her psychic wards against such thermal blasts. She swiftly moved into the small room, getting into cower next to the corridor leading down into the lower chamber. A volley of lasgun beams erupted from the corridor and a rebel ran into the room. He didn't even had the time to scream before she slashed her knife across his throat.  
The remaining milita tried to fire down the corridor, using upturned tables and crates for cower. She glanced down the corridor and turned back into cower as more lasgun beams seared the wall of the room. Revan concentrated on the position of the rebels, carefully selecting their firing positions. She checked her sorcerous shields and stepped into the corridor, firing her boltgun twice. The heavy rounds splintered the wood and exploded in the chests of her foes, leaving only the last survivor to face her. The woman tried to bring up her rifle to bear on Revan, but the Astartes was faster by far. She closed the distance and teared the gun from her hands before the rebel could fire, kicking her in the torso at the same time. The heretic flew back and smashed into a heap of barrels, her spine broken. With a cold smile Revan walked back to the stairs to pick up the meltagun.

The stench of molten concrete and steel filled the underground tunnel as Revan made her entrance with the fusion gun. While the edges of the hole started to cool, she called upon the warp once more to point her location to the other scouts in the area. They should reach her in a few minutes.  
After a few minutes the plasma gunner, Egidius arrived with the rest of the squad. Revan jumped first into the hole, landing in a pool of stinking chemical waste. Her enhanced hearing could pick out the heartbeats of a couple of rats ninety meters, but nothing threatening „No contacts, just rats" she whispered, and started running towards the enemy station, her eyesight easily penetrating the gloom of the tunnels.  
The tunnels were part of an old sewer system that displaced the waste of the refineries into the ash wastes that sorrounded the city. With the rebellion spreading the refineries were shut down, and the tunnels became empty. When the scouts were inside the walls, Revan suddenly stopped, her hair waving as if caught by a breeze no one else could feel . Her eyes snapped open and she readied her melta gun „We're in luck, a few meters further and we will be just below the prison blocks."

Magos Ramius was surprised when the wall behind the rebel troopers guarding the prisoners simply melted, bestowing a horrible death on the heretics. His logic circuits quivered with anticipation as a squad of lightly armoured space marines jumped trough the hole and over the freezing pool of concrete. The third rebel trooper barly had time to scream before one of them shot his head into a ruined pile of meat.  
„Emperor be praised, they are here to save us at last!" said Colonel Wratkens, the not too bright PDF officer held next to Ramius's own cell.  
An unusually pale female made a twisted gesture with her hand, and the locks suddenly opened. Wrakens and the remnants of his command started muttering prayers and benedictions. She ignored them and turned to Ramius „Are you fit to move?". The tech priest stared at her „Well my motivators are a bit damaged, and I hadn't had a drop of sacred oil in…" before he could even begin to explain the hardship he suffered, the rude marine cut him off. „Get yourself moving, and brief Brother Mandeus while he'll escort you outside to the Guard." Ramius's mechandendrites started snaking in his outrage at the show of such disrespect, but he suddenly remembered the taunts of the rebel leaders. „Marine, when they were questioning me their leaders mentioned that an ancient complex is buried under this outpost. They were ranting about a sleeping army. It might be a lie of course, as we never noticed anything, but prepare yourself." She simply nodded, before leading the scouts into the bunker.

The corridors of the bunker were almost empty, as if everybody were up on the walls, worrying about the attack of the Guard. Revan and her squadmates headed towards the plasma generators located in a chamber near the prison blocks, where it should be safe from even a lighter artillery barrage. She was unnerved when she saw no signs of Chaos worship that usually caused such revolts, but there were no sigils painted in blood, not even any sacrifical altars.  
Revan felt the enemy guards waiting at the next turn, and signalled the others to wait. She tried to get a feel the layout of the entrance. It was a blast door, and two of the four rebels were on guard, the other two was playing cards by the sounds of it. The problem was the large red security alarm button next to them. Revan tried to picture the trigger mechanism, holding it immobile so it could not be activated, before she gestured for the others to proceed.  
Lexius and Vigilus stepped out of the corner and shot both standing guards in the neck, making one of the survivors go for his laspistol and the other one hitting the alarm, which failed for the first time in thirty years. His brains were blown out of his head before he could figure out what happened. The other one, a woman, managed to shot Vigilus in the breastplate, burning the outher layers of his armour before the marine blow a hole in her chest.  
Brother Regald fixed a melta bomb on the blast doors, and the scouts retreated a few meters as the shaped thermal charge vaporised the doors, and burned a few of the unlucky heretics standingtoo close. The rest of them, shocked by the sudden flash of heat started firing wildly into the corridor, before Revan lobbed in three frag grenades to finish the job.  
The three plasma generators were an intricate mix of glowing plasma conduits and tangled cables. „Lets use krak grenades, these generators have excellent heat shielding" called out Regald, and the squad complied. Soon the generators were seeded with a dozen krak grenades set to explode at the same time.

The scouts moved out of the room, making their way to a higher level in case the ruptured plasma should flow out of the chamber. After fifteen seconds the floor shook and the lights went out, giving the signal for the guardsmen to stop the diversion and start the real attack.

Rebel officers around the walls cursed as first the lascannons and multilasers went offline, then Thunderer tanks started coming out of alleys and opened fire on the walls, blowing holes and collapsing whole sections. Some heretics tried to use rocket launchers and set up man-portable lascannons, but the Thunderers retreated after taking their shot and a combined force of Chimeras and Hellhounds stormed the ruined walls, incinerating everybody they saw.  
Once the walls were a burning wreckage, the tanks drove trough the gaps made by the Thunderers into the central staging area. However instead of APCs the place was littered by digging vehicles and a large cavern mouth was dug into the earth. „Disembark and secure the area!" commanded Lieutenant Von Hoffenburg from his command Chimera, and took up his hellpistol and chainsword before following his squad out of the vehicle.

He looked around to see his platoon kicking in doors, shooting heretics and showing their superiority to this rebel filth. Suddenly a man screamed and instantly a torrent of plasma fire started moving down his men. „_Take cover!" _he yelled as the Chimeras opened fire on their new assaliants. He took refuge behind a drilling machine, and tried to get a look at their enemy. His heart nearly stopped when he saw them.

The young Blood Ravens arrived to the staging grounds to see guardsmen melting under a hail of swift plasma fire. Revan never heard of anything like the enemy who was slaughtering their allies. Her first impresson was Eldar or Tau, or something like them. The enemy soldiers were almost as fast as them, wearing pearl white armour and featureless masks with glowing blue eyes. After a half-second she realised that she could feel nothing from them. They were facing droids, not living creatures. „_They're robots!" _She spoke the words directly into the minds of the imperials. Egidius unleashed a blast of plasma, blasting two of the advancing machines into ashes, but suddenly a dozen of them shot at him, their guns more like rapid fire blasters than the devastating but slow plasma guns. He tried to duck, but one of the shots hit the plasma gun, which erupted in a white-hot explosion that incinirated him instantly.  
The other scouts quickly took cover, while the automatons started blasting at the Chimeras and the machinery the humans used as cover. More and more of them were emerging from the cave, their numbers growing even as dozens of them were torn to shreds by the bolter fire of the marines and the heavy weapons of the Chimeras. Some of the drivers began to panic and a Hellhound started to accelerate towards the seemingly endless ranks of machines. Most robots got out of the way, but a few were smashed by the heavy vehicle. The survivors opened fire as one, first blackening the hulls than causing it to glow as the metal heated from the sustained plasma fire. The Hellhound suddenly erupted in a ball of promethium flame, taking a satisfying number of foes to death with it.  
Vigilus opened up his vox channel, calling for help. One of the Chimeras was a smoking wreckage, and the other ones were starting to heat too. Revan summoned the power of the Warp, drawing as much power as she could, and a glittering shield started to form around the marines and the tanks. For the first time the automatons were disturbed, and started to concentrate their fire on one of the tanks, but Revan just shifted the power of the psychic shield to strenghten the vehicle in danger. They had to hold them off for a few minutes to give the reinforcements time to arrive.  
The enemy attack was relentless and their numbers kept increasing, and Revan was wondering how long she could keep the shields up when the remaining walls were blown to dust, and a squadron of Leman Russ battle tanks joined the battle, followed by the Thunderers. Their cannons and heavy bolters opened up, obliterating almost a hundred of the machines in one salvo. The guardsmen cheered as they regrouped and moved into the relative safety of the Chimeras, but their joy was short lived.  
An entire unit of jetbikes swept out of the cave, flying in circles above the imperials and unleashing volley after volley of missiles and plasma fire into the tanks. They were simply too fast for the sponson gunners to target, and the scouts quickly started gunning the lightly armoured jetbikes, but they were already low on ammunition and there were just too many of the swift craft.  
While the guardsmen were distracted, the remaining robots started running towards them, jumping upon the tanks to avoid their heavy weapon fire. From the cave a new type of heavily armoured warriors started emerging, carrying heavy plasma and fusion guns. At the centre of this group, flanked by the rebel leaders, was a creature who looked like some noble general of a forgotten age. His features were honest and beautiful, his armour more orante than of any eldar. The artificial general had what looked like a fusion pistol in one hand, and a lightsaber-like energy sword in the other. A halo of blue glowing energy surrounded him, turning away heavy bolters shots and laser beams alike.

In the storm of battle nobody noticed the Thunderhawks until they opened fire on the artificial army, thinning out their numbers for the first time. The doors on their sides opened and Assault Marines jumped down into the fight, their bolters and plasma guns firing even before they hit the ground.  
Von Hoffenburg raised his chainsword and cut one of he robots down, before slicing off its head to be sure. He looked up into a barrel of a plasma rifle, but before he could even move the machine holding the rifle was cut into a pile of scrap by the chainsword of a gigantic figure standing behind it, a meter taller and wider than Hoffenburg. The marine didn't even waited to see the enemy fall, he moved towards his next target, while Hoffenburg stood stunned by the sheer speed of something so huge.  
He looked towards the cave just in time to see seven drop pods smashing into the ranks of the heretical monsters, their sides opening to unleash the marines inside upon the confused automatons. For the first time, it looked like that victory was close.  
Captain Julianus led the Terminators of the Second Company in the charge, cutting through his mechanical foes with contemptous ease. Altough these robots were faster than the necrons, their weapons were nowhere as deadly as gauss flayers. Chaplain Girardus was a magnificent sight to behold in his own Terminator suit, Crozius Arcanum blazing as he crushed anyone who stood before him, bellowing the Chatecism of Righteous Hatred in the deep, menancing voice of his voxcaster.  
Librarian Angelos was relieved to find most of the scouts alive, but her mood changed to a terrible fury as she discovered Egidius's fate. Her psychic hood crackled with power and lightning danced around her fingertips as she ran to join the melee. She unleashed a blast of lightning at the biggest group of robots she could find, overcharging their circuits until they collapsed. Gabriella drew her force swords and leapt into the fray, her speed increased by her psyker gifts and her blazing hate. The automatons hit by her swords simply exploded into sharpnel, and she suddenly faced the terrified rebel leaders. They were wearing armour like their mechanical soldiers, but that didn't stop her from imploding their bodies with a tought. Gabriella suddenly sensed danger and jumped to her right, barely avoiding a quick trust of a blue glowing energy sword.  
Julianus saw the enemy leader almost running trough his Librarian, and he charged it, leaving the normal warriors to be ripped apart by the storm bolter fire of the Terminators. Somehow the android leader sensed him coming, and brought up its energy sword to parry his strike. The Captain was surprised by its fast reflexes, but he didn't allow the thing any respite, launching a quick flury of cuts before making a kick at its knee. The robot somehow managed to dodge him, its so human features twisted into a mocking grin. „Whatever you are, you can never defeat my army. After twenty millenia of waiting in darkness, now we will rule your inferior race once again!" Its voice was taunting and compelling at the same time, but Julianus simply didn't care. „_For the Emperor!"_ he said and brought his blessed power sword down, straight for the machine's head. It parried just as quick, but the sheer strenght of the Astartes pushed its own blade down.  
Julianus saw its fusion gun coming to bear on his chest, but Gabriella was quicker and her force sword cut trought the mechanical arm before it could fire the gun, burying her other blade deep in the chest of the ancient war machine. Its face retained the grin even as the body collapsed, its internal mechanism destroyed by the power of the Warp.

With the destruction of their leader, the automatons became less coordinated, and Revan dropped her empty bolt pistol to drew her lightsabers, charging into the melee to finish the remaining droids off. Hundreds of destroyed mechanical soldiers scattered on the ground, and those few which survived were now fighting without any directions, just obeying their basic programming. She cut one down with an gracious blow, and impaled another with a swift thrust, finally letting the magical shields drop. Despite her efforts, half of the Chimeras, a few Hellhounds and two Leman Russes were destroyed, and only one fourth of the guardsmen platoon were still alive.  
A bolt of lightning disabled a robot, and a quick pulse of telekinesis crushed another into a pile of metal plates and wires.  
She surveyed the battlefield and the only movement were the guardsmen taking away the bodies of their wounded and dead comrades to be loaded into the surviving Chimeras, while tech adepts supervised the Trojans which took the wrecked tanks away. The other Guard tanks already left the site of battle, which she found a bit strange.  
Revan walked to Julianus, falling to one knee as he turned towards her „Captain, the generators were disabled and all imperial personnel rescued. Brother Egidius died as his plasma gun exploded, the geneseed could not be saved, my lord." The commander's fists clenched, but his voice was controlled „Considering the nature of the foe, I tought more of you would be lost. I should have knew something was wrong, but I did not. We will mourn him, but now we must leave this place." Revan noticed that the Guard forces were rapidly moving away into the city. She decided to risk asking the Captain „Sire, might I ask why are we not fortifying this place in case more androids show up?" Julianus glared at her silently, as if considering the answer „Archmagos Antonius wants this heresy of the Abominable Intellect destroyed. Imperial forces are evacuating what little civilians are left in the city, and the Divine Vengeance is preparing to destroy the underground tunnel complex that covers almost half of this city in an hour. Take the scouts and board the Thunderhawks."

The space marines watched as the imperial forces withdrew from the air. It took one and a half hour, but that was still fast considering the numbers of the Guard. The Astartes than boarded the Thunderhawks which shot up almost vertically towards the Divine Vengeance. Once they were in space, one of the dorsal bombardment cannons opened fire, levelling the entire city in a nuclear firestorm.  
Archmagos Antonius and other senior tech priests debriefed the marines about the robotical army, and used the starship's auspex arrays to search the entire planet for other nasty surprises, but they found nothing. Most rebels surrendered after a few days, in the hope of mercy, which of course they did not receive.

Revan meditated in her chambers, surprised how the loss of his fellow scout affected her. She never really cared about casaulities in the past, since all her minions were expendable except a chosen few, and she didn't even know Egidius well. It must be part of the mental coniditioning, she guessed. „And vengeance is the only thing worth fightning for, young one." she looked up into the grim Death Mask of the Chaplain. „We will give thanks to the Emperor for our victory, and pray for the souls of the fallen. Come and see me in the Chapel after Firing Rites." Revan watched the old marine leave her chambers, and marvelled how the Chaplain could guess at her thoughts. She knew he was right, this was her first real battle and she needed guildence to reflect upon what she had learned.


End file.
